The Netherese Ruins

A complex of worked stone buried beneath the mountains near the Coldpeak territory. The tribe has known about it for generations and avoided it. The Owlbear has been circling it.

The natural cave the party sheltered in after Session 1 opened into the ruins through a narrow tunnel — the cave wasn’t a cave at all, but an antechamber. Inside: a grand 30-foot worked-stone chamber with carvings of floating Netherese cities, ancient gods, and scenes of magical experimentation. An ice-covered marble door sealed the inner sanctum, inscribed with what appeared to be Draconic script but was actually Netherese — the language of Congenio Ioun, creator of the Ioun stones, whose schools encoded knowledge as logic puzzles.

Explored Areas

The Entry Chamber — carvings, remnants of a previous camp (limestone-crusted backpack, journal, sparkly blue pebbles), and an Ioun stone puzzle door. The journal’s logic grid identified four stones needed to open it.

The Underground Lake — crossed by the party; home to piercers who drop from the ceiling and are more dangerous than they look.

The Gazer Chamber — three baby beholders were playing keep-away with the Ioun stones. Dr. Medicine traded them snake oil for the stones on a promise the stones would reappear in two days. That deadline has passed.

The Bone Bridge — elegant worked stone bridge over a deep pit filled with crawling severed right hands. All right hands. The frescoes above showed Netherese mages — all missing their right hands. One fresco depicted an initiation ritual: an apprentice cutting off her own.

The Chamber of the Slumbering Crystal — colder than the blizzard outside. Pictograms of a staff. A collapsed roof. The Owlbear crashed through the ceiling here, killing the nameless gnome spellcaster and triggering a fight. When Berg drove home 16 piercing damage with a Growth-enhanced pike, she fled through the wall and revealed a passage to the surface — where frozen archaeologists had been waiting.

Open Questions

• What was the staff the pictograms depicted?
• Who sent the archaeologists, and what were they looking for?
• What is the Owlbear guarding in that chamber?
• Why does the door know who is about to die?